Monday, May 16, 2011

Another Muddy Buddy is in the books making it my 5th and the 3rd with The Fox. The Fox and I headed up to Richmond, VA on Saturday 30th for the Muddy Buddy race at Pocahontas State Park on May 1st. We have our normal routine for the weekend. We left Raleigh around lunchtime and stopped to grab something to eat along the way. We rolled into Chester and stopped at our hotel (Marriott) which is the same one for the last 3 years. It in a great location since it is 10 miles from the race and it is a Marriott need not say more. Then we headed over to Blue Ridge Mountain Sports for packet pick-up. As normal we just like to take it easy the day before the race, so we hit up Dick Sporting Goods and then a bicycle shop.

For dinner that night we hit up Bandito's Burrito Lounge just like we have for the two years prior. This place has some of the best burritos and tacos I have had along with great salsa. We all know if the salsa sucks more likely the food will too. This year we went a different route and ordered the mahi mahi tacos instead of a two pound burrito that makes you feel uncomfortable the rest of the night. My tacos were great, The Fox on the other hand had a hairy taco for his second one, but still finished eating. Yes, we both served in the military and pretty sure we had eaten much worse. Of course they did not charge him for his meal. Our next plan was to head back to the hotel, check the bike over again, watch some track and field on ESPN, then head over to Hooters to catch some UFC. We ended up just checking out the bike and watching track and field. It was nearly ten o'clock and we didn't feel like going to Hooters to drink beer since we had to get up at 5:30 the next morning. We have done it in the past, but not this time, yes we know LAME.

Almost forgot, this year we changed our team name to Pelotas De Acero which translate to Balls of Steel. So, we get to Pocahontas State Park around 6 - 6:15 that morning go get our tshirts that they ran out of at early packet pick-up. Head back to car to get everything ready for the race and give us enough time for the normal pre-race multiple trips to the bathroom a/k/a port-o-johns. Finally race time has come upon us around 8 am that morning, but we are the 4th wave to go so the wait ends up being another fifteen to twenty minutes. We wish we were wave 1, so that there would be no in front of us to contend with on the trail and make finding the bike at the obstacles a lot easier. For as many people that we had in front of us our race went pretty smooth through all the transitions. I couldn't find the bike for about 10 seconds at one transition and they threw in an obstacle right before the mud pit. It was a nice 20 foot rope climb with a climb down on the other side. Our time was 45:33 for the 7 mile course. We ended up 2nd in our division and 9th overall which is not to shabby. Next year, it is on and looking to take 1st in division and hopefully make top 5 in the overall.